XCOM 2: War of the Chosen upgrades design, enemies, and cinematic story

2K’s Firaxis Games made a lot of changes to the basic design of its turn-based combat game XCOM 2 with its new expansion XCOM 2: War of the Chosen.

The tactical combat title’s expansion launches on August 29, the same day as turn-based Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle. War of the Chosen will debut on the PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. In this experience, players will take on a new class of aliens, dubbed the Chosen. The aliens will give the game more personality and cinematic story sequences. It will also have options for easier gameplay (I had some huge difficulties with the original XCOM 2 last year.)

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Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.